'You lost, get over it': Gilbert woman hangs '2nd place' banner on Confederate monument

Rebecca McHood is no stranger to activism: The Gilbert Republican has walked in women's marches, protested the Dakota Access Pipeline, stood by Black Lives Matter activists and publicly skewered Arizona's school-voucher program.

Her most recent act of resistance required only scrapbook paper and ribbon.

Outraged by President Donald Trump's claim that "bad people" on both sides were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the 37-year-old headed straight for the Confederate memorial at the state Capitol Tuesday evening.

Across the bottom, she strung a second-place participation banner. Across the top, she hung a ribbon that said, "You lost, get over it."

Both were inspired by memes where people had Photoshopped "consolation prize" or "participation trophy" over Confederate symbols, she said.

"I was so enraged, so mad after that press conference, there was no way I could do nothing," McHood said, adding that she doesn't feel Trump's positions reflect her Republican values. "Something needed to happen, and it needed to happen right then. I couldn't sit still anymore."

McHood's protest came just hours after civil-rights leaders slammed Gov. Doug Ducey's refusal to back removal of the state's six Confederate memorials, including the one at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza. McHood said she believes in limited government but thinks the monuments should come down.

"I think it's completely obnoxious that they are here at all," she said. "Arizona wasn't a state then."

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McHood and a friend hung the banners on the monument at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, she said. They were still up later that evening. 

By early Wednesday morning, the banners were gone. But someone had painted "BLM," the acronym for Black Lives Matter, on the monument's base overnight.

The state Department of Administration — which handles maintenance and upkeep for memorials at the Capitol — said officials cleaned off the paint Wednesday morning but were unaware of the banner "situation."

"It wasn’t reported to us, and ADOA did not initiate removal," spokeswoman Megan Rose said.

McHood said she doesn't "condone violence or vandalism," including the overnight paint job.

"But I do hope that people see the racism in (the Confederate-monument fight) and the refusal of people to speak out," she said. "If you like to think that you would've marched with Martin Luther King Jr., I believe that if you're not out marching now, then you wouldn't have. "

READ:  Here at the six Confederate monuments in Arizona

Frustration with Arizona officials' refusal to remove the state's Confederate memorials has increased in the wake of the Charlottesville bloodshed, with residents on social media calling for Ducey to "show leadership." The governor on Monday said it was "not (his) desire or mission to tear down any monument or memorial" in Arizona.

Other Arizonans fiercely oppose removing the memorials, arguing they are symbols of history and heritage.

East Valley NAACP President Roy Tatem, one of the civil-rights activists leading the charge for removal, said some community members have threatened to topple the monuments themselves. He said he "advised against that" and promotes only "non-violent civil disobedience."

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